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Get in the Scrap!September 1942
Radio Retailing Today Article

September 1942 Radio Retailing Today

[Table
of Contents]These articles are scanned and OCRed from old editions of the Radio Retailing Today magazine.
All copyrights (if any) are hereby acknowledged.

An
extraterrestrial threat to existence, be it an impending asteroid strike
or an intelligent being's announced intention to do harm to the earth,
would probably be required these days to invoke the sort of voluntary
personal sacrifices of today's average citizen that was exhibited in
the enthusiastic, patriotic response by Americans to the
'V' for Victory campaign during World War II. You
no doubt have seen pictures of kids pulling wagons filled with metal
scrap, rubber tires, and glass milk and pop bottles collected for the
war effort, and pickup trucks piled high with sections of pipe, car
parts, and
retired
furnaces. Resources were relatively scarce at the time, and material
was being consumed very quickly in the effort to beat back the aggressive
advances of Axis forces throughout Europe, northern Africa, and the
South Pacific. This article from a 1942 edition of Radio Retailing
Today encouraged radio repairmen to check with customers during
service calls for any available scrap items that could be hauled back
to the shop for donation. "The loss of one percent in our production
of steel, for example, is immediately reflected in the arming and supplying
of necessary material to our fighting forces."

Get in the Scrap!

OEM Photo

"Precious"
junk like this can be picked up from the average radio home.

One of radio's Victory jobs is the prompt and efficient collection
of all scrap materials within the limits of the industry. The War Production
machinery of the nation needs it badly, and the situation invites the
energetic interest of everybody in the radio business.

Donald
Nelson of WPB, in his currently "tough" mood, has declared that the
collection of scrap is today as important as any problem we have in
this country. He has made it clear that there must be a sharp acceleration
in the coast-to-coast effort to "get in the scrap."

The activities
of the radio factories themselves are already being organized under
the direction of Larry E. Gubb, chairman of the board of Philco Corp,
Mr. Gubb works with the American Industries Salvage Committee, 350 Fifth
Ave., New, York City, of which Robert W. Wolcott is chairman, and is
contacting all manufacturers in the industry. The emphasis is on the
collection of such critically-needed materials as iron and steel scrap,
scrap rubber, non-ferrous metals, rags, manila fiber and other materials
used in war production.

Some radio manufacturers have already
organized their plant personnel for important salvage drives and have
collected great amounts of "waste" metal. The "mountain of metal" saved
by salvage efforts at RCA plants is an example.

The
Whole Trade

Cooperating with the all-industry scrap
effort, Radio Retailing Today is helping to enlist the efforts of the
thousands of radio servicemen and dealers who contact the millions of
radio owners to "Keep 'Em Working." The suggestion is that local radio
men clean up their own shops and homes; that they encourage the scrap
collection idea in all the homes they visit on radio repair calls; that
they use their trucks in hauling scrap whenever appropriate; and that
they cooperate to the limit with all existing salvage plans and organizations
already set up in their communities.

Donald Nelson says:

"I am not exaggerating in the slightest, when I say
that the collection of scrap is now as important as any problem we have
in this country. If we as a nation, allow a single furnace to go down
for lack of scrap, we should, everyone of us, have a guilty conscience.
The loss of one percent in our production of steel, for example, is
immediately reflected in the arming and supplying of necessary material
to our fighting forces."

The idea is that the collection of
scrap should become a part of the radio man's wartime duties - it should
be a part of his wartime patrol as represented on the front cover of
this issue.

In a special statement to this magazine, Mr. Gubb
describes the radio serviceman's salvage job as follows:

"The
radio servicer can be Uncle Sam's right-hand man in the nationwide drive
to get scrap metals and other materials out of homes, farms and business
establishments and into the steel mills where it is drastically needed
to keep the production of steel for tanks, ships, planes and guns running
at capacity. Scrap iron and steel stockpiles have dwindled from the
normal six weeks' supply to a 'two-weeks' supply. The War Production
Board is swiftly organizing a network of Salvage Committees in industry,
in farm communities and in town and cities, to handle the job of getting
in the scrap.

Servicer's Job

"What
can the radio servicer do, over and above his own contribution of scrap
materials? First, he can take on his personal patriotic responsibility
of asking - at the home of every customer he visits - if there is not
some metal or other scrap which the householder would like to have hauled
down to the scrap collection center in the radio man's car, on his way
back. Second, he can notify the local salvage committee of his willingness
to give this special service - a service to his customers and to the
scrap metal drive.

"Inasmuch as production of new radio sets
has been stopped by the Government, it is up to radio servicemen to
do everything they can to aid the public by keeping existing sets in
operation. Especially in wartime, it is important that every American
family be able to keep informed of current developments, which they
can no through the miracle of radio. In those cases, however. where
sets are too old or obsolete to be repaired satisfactorily. the parts
in them should be added to the nation's scrap reserve for service elsewhere
in the war program."